Going with gut instinct: Lunch With literary agent Fiona Inglis

By the end of an opening chapter, Fiona Inglis usually has a good idea if the manuscript in her hands is potential bestseller material.

Call it gut instinct, says the well-connected head of the literary agency Curtis Brown who has made a career out of spotting writers readers want to read and counts bestselling clients Liane Moriarty, Markus Zusak, Andy Griffiths and Thomas Keneally as friends.

Story is everything. "Good writing will always rise to the top because it has something to say that is worth paying attention to," Inglis says. "I know immediately when I've found something fabulous because I want to interrupt everyone in the office and say, 'You have to read this!'

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